Pretty much agree, except Noktorn, hells-unicorn and Emp are really consistent too.

Oh, and me, of course.

Great reason. Fuck Neige! He isn't even all that sexy in person. Fursy was much sexier when I caught them live.



Pretty much hit the nail on the head. I needed a break from metal, some time to get my head out of my ass, realise there's more to music than metal and mature a bit. Writing got pretty tedious after a while for various reasons and since I'm not heavily involved in the forum, I could easily shut myself off from it all. I have considered writing reviews for other genres though but I'm in no rush to start up again.

did two recently and review for worship Music is pending at the moment

I'll usually gravitate towards some of the more prolific reviewers who I like. Then, if I like the music, I'll check back with a few of the lesser-known writers to get their take.


Overall, this is a great site. There is a lot of valid opinion here, from both experienced professionals and amateur writers. I think that's great.


I guess in the end, I just feel like the original post is a little strange. Why would I want to cut off my access to more opinions? But that's OK. To each his own.

I actually don't read many reviews on MA these days simply because I prefer more prolific reviewers (since they have a more codified sense of style in their writing) but those prolific ones apart from me tend to concentrate on styles that I'm not that interested in (thrash, power, prog, etc.). If there were other people doing a lot of black/brutal death/grind reviews I would probably read more but for the most part you don't get to see that stuff reviewed on a very regular basis by people invested in the styles. There's a few people who I'll read anything from (Cheeses, Gutterscream, Nightgaunt, the usual suspects) but for the most part I just write my own stuff.

So you're pretty much the only reviewer you like and you wish more reviewers were like you.

There isn't a steady supply of black metal reviews? Ouch!

Black metal is pretty much the least popular sub-genre around!

Not quite. I wish Cheeses/Gutterscream/Nightgaunt wrote more. I like Caspian's reviews a lot but he's still kind of infrequent. Muloc's are cool too but he really just posts on RYM now.



I want a steady supply from the same writers. I like getting to know an individual's style of writing. I don't really read reviews as a buying guide, so it's more about style and interesting opinions and explorations than how "functional" they are.

@OP: This question doesn't make sense, most of the really prolific writers are really good (autothrall, hells_unicorn, empyreal etc), and why would you be upset that someone had written a lot of reviews

@Sharp and Slender; I agree with you on Nightgaunt, Gutterscream and Cheeses Priced. BastardHead has slowed down a little as well. However, there are a fuckload of black metal reviews, perhaps an overabundance of them.

yeah .. because these days you can basically c/p what you have written before

I basically feel like as I improved as a writer, my vocal fanbase disappeared. When I was putting out five reviews a week, most of my stuff was based on goofy toilet humor and verbose profanity, then I became the resident fatty. Some time after that I started writing less, focusing more on good description while throwing in a few jokes here and there and, in my eyes, improved drastically as a writer. The issue is that I'm my own harshest critic so I don't do as much because I never feel like what I write is good enough. My early batch of reviews make me cringe.

That's how you get popular on the internet.

I hear you. I hate my own writing. When I do get a critique, it's usually about something that I thought was just fine.

So not only do I feel I'm not all that great, but the things I think I'm good at, other's think suck, and vice versa.

It's kind of a cluster fuck, heh.

I hate my writing and I don't think I have ever been really satisfied with a review.

Same here! When I have time I wanna get better and re-do the 3 I have up, plus the ones I was gonna do for the most recent Review Challenge that I totally bitched out on. It seems like they sound so good when you write them, then a month later it's embarrassing.

As for autothrall, I couldn't live without him! He's helped map out my journey into more and more obscure thrash metal, and he does it in a more comprehensive and less reactionary way than UltraBoris, who I used to regard in much the same light. Though his scores often seem way low I feel like I understand his criteria and why albums deserve the score he awards. I'm not as knowledgeable about the other prolific reviewers mostly because they don't deal in thrash like autothrall does but I haven't seen any reviewer since the alexredchord guy who does lots of reviews that I can't stand.

if its a good review what do I care if the same person keeps writing them

Speaking of UltraBoris, whatever happened to him? I disagree with quite a few of his reviews, but they nearly always made me laugh. Not to mention I discovered some good thrash as a result of reading his thoughts.

Also, I find autothrall to be one of the best reviewers on this site, along with hells_unicorn. Autothrall gets bonus points for being the only person (as of this post) to have reviewed 'Sympathetic Resonance'.

I think I'd like autothrall more if he reviewed brutal death metal albums.

I caught on to that pretty quickly. I started reading reviews here recently just to pass some time at work, and for shits n' giggles. Oh my god is this annoying, where do these come from? Some sound halfway informed or intelligent, but most sound like a 5 year old wrote them, either in the grammar (I know many are not native English speakers, but you can tell who those are), or in the reasoning behind their criticisms. Man woudl I hate to go through life not beign able to enjoy music becasue of the slightest little nit-picks. "Unoriginal"...what IS original any more? All ideas have been used up, everything now sounds somewhat like something that came before it, or influenced by it, get over it.
And I think I've counted no less than 1,547,208 uses of the word "wankery" in the Dream theater reviews. It has quickly climed to near the top of my most hated terms list. In a review I just read abour their Six Degrees album, "poor composition". Ok where is your masterpiece of musical composition? By what standard are you judging this by?
Most of the reviewers also tend to forget their opinion is just that - their opinion, and they present it as a matter of fact that is unarguable. And the fact that I'm constantly asking myself "what the hell album are they listening to?" as I'm reading their ramblings, proves the cliche that opinions are like the ol' bown-eye.

I better stop, I could go on for hours about how annoying most of these reviews are. So now I'll just go back to reading more of them, LOL. (Just registered here to post this rant.)

That's the worst fallacy you can commit about a subjective review. You just come off as retarded for using it.

I, too, wish this argument was never used again.

I can't cook, so I obviously have no opinion about what foods taste bad.
I don't have my own tv show, so who am I to say that Big Bang Theory is a horrible show?
Zarach 'Baal" Tharagh actually makes music, while all I do is bitch about it. When I make a bedroom black metal demo, then I'll have a valid opinion.

Fuck you guys that cower behind this argument.

I completely agree with Ozzy and Emp, that's my least favorite thing in the world, BUT I don't think that's what he meant. He harped on the opinion point so I assumed he meant "what is what you consider a masterpiece personally?". I actually didn't even interpret it as anything other than that until you guys.

Same. You guys read way too far into things.

That being said, I hate this line of reasoning just as much:

Waaah, you voiced your opinion too strongly! I'm too stupid to know that every judgement of an artistic work is an opinion at heart, and when people voice opinions that are different from mine without specifically leaving a disclaimer that it's an opinion, I feel this unbearable little hurt feeling in my bottom!

Once again, the fungus that is Autothrall only posted when he was mentioned. Honestly, I don't get the OP's point either. Autothrall is a damn good reviewer and I tend to agree with his views most of the time. In fact, I think I'm the opposite of what the OP is suggesting. When I see a review by the greats like hells_unicorn, Perplexed_sledj (etc...) I tend to read them. When I see that it's by Deathmetul248, I stay away.

What the Jesus? His taste is god-awful, his writing purple and excessively lenghty. How is he "a great?"

I would ask the same of the others he mentioned, but the obvious answer is that it's a matter of opinion.

Autothrall and especially hells_unicorn are quite good compared to Perplexed_Sjel.

I think Perplexed_Sjel usually goes into more depth than Autothrall. As for hells_unicorn, I can't really comment as I don't read a lot of his reviews because I have a very different taste in metal than him (I really dislike power metal, for example.) I think Perplexed_Sjel is a good guy to read when it comes to black metal, although I do occasionally disagree with him. I'm disappointed he no longer reviews here. Oh, and what do you mean by "his writing is purple"?

This is purple writing:




His writing is characterised by stupidly vivid, pretentious descriptions of some impressionistic scenes from the depths of his mind. I know I've committed the same crime in some of my reviews, but to boot his purple descriptions are delightfully combined with incredibly bad structure and textual flow and read like a shopping list arranged into a proper paragraph.

To make a caricature of his style:
"Neige's indredibly beautiful singing flows straight to your heart conjuring images of peace and hopefulness from childhood that definitely doesn't bother the listener. The drumming is skillful. Neige also plays bass on the album, which isn't noticeable."

I never said he was the greatest reviewer ever and didn't have any flaws, but he generally gives a good idea of what the music sounds like and we have a lot of similar tastes.

Well, you did call him "a great".

Cause I personally think he's great. But when it comes to purple writing and pretentiousness, he dosen't come close to Noktorn. And Napero is clearly the greatest reviewer.

The only thing I can say I am sick of seeing as far as reviews go, are the biased reviews people post for albums from genres they openly dispise. That only scares away people that do like that genre and might actually like that album. What I mean here is, if you like folk metal and hate deathcore, don't do a deathcore review, vise-vera.

Zombie94, and where would you draw the line? I like black metal but despise its certain pussified offshoot (bands like Alcest, Falloch, etc.) which is easily identifiable as its own style. Should I not review those bands?

I think the notion is ridiculous. Every new viewpoint is a gain for any album's reviews. There are some other folk metal fans who timidly explore deathcore albums with the understanding that deathcore is not in fact inherently shite and some albums may be worth the time. Another folk metal fan's review on deathcore, therefore, is potentially useful to someone, and as unlikely as it may be, a review that exists is worth more than one that doesn't.

If you went into that review with a critisism that wasn't a constant shit talking of the band or genre then I say go ahead. To make my original point more precise, I was talking of those that go into an album, knowing they won't like it, and then write a "review" on it that is a constant trash talk of the genre as a whole. I haven't nessessarily seen too much of that here, but I have seen it in many other places and I find it simply disgraceful.

This is not at all necessarily true.

Exactly. The exchange rate is currently: 100 ConorFynes reviews for 8 autothrall reviews or .0211 of a Napero review (respectively).

Ozzy, you're ConorFynes' #1 fan.

He's where I was when I started on this site. Instead of looking back on my own work 6 years ago, I just need to look at any of his reviews.

I never wanted to be a busker like him, though.